Still catching up, but as mentioned when talking about gigs, July saw us heading down to the south coast and a little stay in Brighton.

Saturday

The journey down was an annoyingly long train but at least it was brightened by a dog who wouldn’t let me stop fussing. Arriving in Brighton we headed down the hill from the station, abandoning one Wetherspoons as too packed, and heading across to the other, which had the advantage of being right by the hotel, and the disadvantage of being full of typically strange people.

Having revived from the trip and checked into the hotel we headed for a stroll along the shoreline. Heather got to have a ride on the seafront carousel and we both got to have a drink in a skater friendly bar near the weird doughnut (AKA i360). We’ve done that rather peculiar experience before so headed straight past it. What we’d never got round to investigating before though is the adjacent Upside Down House.

It is, as the name suggests, a house tipped on its head; floor becomes ceiling, walls hold pictures the “wrong” way up. It’s good fun, and makes for some clever photographs, though we could have done without the slightly over enthusiastic staff member determined to tell us how to enjoy it (they gave the impression of foreign student earning some money—you wouldn’t think they’d be that eager).

Taking a moment to regain our equilibrium after emerging into the normally orientated world, we continued along the beach before eventually deciding we probably should turn back while there was still some light in the day. That took us up through one of the many little gardens (presumably once private to the surrounding houses) as we decided to head back slightly in land. We called into the curiously named Maris And Otter and there started trying to decide what to do for dinner. For some reason the mention of sausages (and a name resonant with another, special, pub) led us to the Shakespeare’s Head. That was certainly a bit of trek into parts of Brighton we’d never been, up past the station and to a rather nice looking area.

The pub itself was nice too, despite the one member of staff behind the bar being very over worked (they had people off, and were still friendly and eventually, we were pleased to see, relieved by help). The sausages weren’t bad either. And then it was back down the hill to the hotel and bed.

Sunday

After traditional Sunday crosswords in bed we lazily wandered in search of brunch to keep us fuelled for the day. We also called in the weird faux medieval King And Queen which is always a joy if only for its strangeness. We were really killing time waiting for the evening entertainment, but still found a chance to wander one of Brighton’s bizarres, an always fascinating experience. With a quick call back at the hotel, we found ourselves in a bar by the beach before heading for On The Beach.

Monday

Monday morning saw us hunting food, and finding it in the rather good Kooks. When we were down in Brighton last, hunting Shauns, Heather actually won a gift card to be spent in Brighton shops. So we went shopping, starting at Socktopus, who couldn’t get the card to actually work, despite best efforts, which was slightly annoying. Actually, it took a couple more shops before somebody eventually worked out how to get things fully working!

Shops and a pub or two done we dropped things at the hotel before heading once more for the seaside. This time we finally got the chance to ride Volk’s Electric Railway, an historic small railway running along the seafront. We took it all the way to the end of the line, approaching the marina, but there’s not actually much there and we didn’t want to make the hike into the marina itself. So we hopped the train back again to halfway, beside one of our all time favourite crazy golf courses, Jungle Rumble. It also has a nice open seated area to look down on the sea, railway, and golf with a relaxing drink.

Having been up and over at the crazy golf we strolled along to Bison where we also grabbed some food, and indeed settled in for the rest of the evening, just enjoying chilling

Tuesday

While Heather had breakfast I packed up so we could leave the bags with the hotel and hit some more shops. Not least among those was the vast and strange world which is Snooper’s Paradise (Heather almost inevitably coming away with far too many thimbles). Just up the road we called in old favourite The White Rabbit before heading around the lanes and the Druid’s Head for lunch.

That left just about enough time to go for a walk along the pier, with the pub at the end before heading back to the hotel, and then back home.

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